Barclays, the U.K.’s second-largest bank by assets, will
also pay more to investors in dividends because it will no
longer need to retain profit to bolster capital, PIRC said in an
e-mailed statement today. The London-based lender said in July
it will pay as much as 50 percent of its earnings in dividends
in 2014, an increase from its 30 percent target in February.

“An amount on that scale cannot be explained by the return
on investment from the capital raising itself,” London-based
PIRC, which advises clients who manage more than $2 trillion in
pension funds, said in the statement.

PIRC said in April the bank’s reliance on International
Financial Reporting Standards may have meant it overstated
profits by 11.7 billion pounds. The accounting rules restrict
provisioning against expected loan losses, it said.